Breaking the Cycle
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: Some days are supposed to be marked down on the calendar some should be remembered.


_Lots of ellipses... lots of italics (kinda like here) and lotsa kinda-sorta angst because the New England Patriots are making me mad right now. (Thank Ms. Tie-Feathers, way to go above and beyond.)  
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_That is all. Do read on._

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Oh wait! Wait! No really, go read. Wow, you're kinda fickle, aren'tcha?

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_"Sara-Sara, stop." His hands were in her hair but they were pushing her off, not pulling her towards him. Odd, very odd...

She didn't really hear him and even if she had she wouldn't have bothered to stop. She positively loved kissing his neck. Straight up, over his jugular, over his Adam's apple, skipping his beard to his delicious earlobe... so yummy...

"Sara, stop. It's the fifth."

"Hmm, so it is," but she just went right on kissing, nibbling his ear, kissing his cheek, getting very ready to devour his ample mouth. It was indeed December fifth, she wondered what that would have to do with..."And?"

"And... it's been nearly forty-seven days, Sara..." Pulling back, she was clearly confused as to why he was stopping what was about to happen. "And we've been... pretty active... every night this week." Grissom thought for a moment, looking down at his shredded shirt. "And last week for that matter." His eyes were so wide and so bright blue that it threw her off guard.

"Are you complaining?" she asked, pressing hair behind her ears so that she could see him more clearly. She was flushed, on the verge of sweating from her excursions... ones that she wanted to be returning to if he would get to his point...

"No, no no." Grissom fidgeted and sat forward, she still in his lap, straddling his hips. "I just... are you... is your menstrual cycle I mean..." He was counting, that was the first thing that struck her. He was remembering when her period came. It was ludicrous, it was-... and then it hit her.

"Holy. Shit." Stock still, Sara clamped her eyes shut and her mouth began tossing out a litany of silence words. "Yeah, about forty-seven…"

Something out of a nightmare... or a seldom dreamt dream. But the dream usually came with smiles and hugs and kissing, not frigid fright and surprise. These things came with _planning_! Damn it, they were supposed to come with planning; well thought out love making during ovulation, talk of baby names and nurseries and certainly _not_ a frantic halt to what was about to be fantastic sex. "Oh, oh god. I can't... Gil I, I'm sorry I-"

"No! Don't be sorry, I just... you're... late."

Hovering for a moment, she glanced at him, wondering what to do with herself. Grissom began stroking the skin of her lower back, their breathing falling in sync. Eventually, she clambered off of him and pulled the hem of her shirt back down to meet her jeans. "Really, I'm... sorry. This is my fault-"

"Sara, this is no one's fault." Half shirtless, he pulled himself out of the bed and stood before her, taking her cheeks between his palms. "We make love _together_, sweetheart."

Pushing a harsh breath through her lips, she nodded, eyes closed, as if she were about to tackle an intensely difficult vault routine. "I know, let's just... can you run to the store and-"

"Of course, of course, just..." he didn't quite know what to say but found the need to calm her down as much as possible. Inside, his pancreas were busy shredding his stomach and he felt the need to be very, very ill. "Just, you take a bath, or, or something."

Dazed, glassy eyes looked up at him and he watched her nod, a little belatedly. "Yeah, yeah, I'll uh, be in there." She turned around slowly and moved to his closet to grab one of his robes. "I'll be in there."

"Hey," before she could disappear, he grabbed her wrist so that she turned to face him. "Hey, I love you, okay? I do."

"I know, I-" And searching for the right words, the ones that would perfectly fit the fucked up situation she had somehow found herself in, she said, "I love you, too." And then he kissed her temple, she blinked at him and then disappeared into the bathroom. He tossed on a tee-shirt that was flung over the back of a chair, slid on his shoes and grabbed his keys.

If his true male instinct had chosen to kick in, he would have been slightly embarrassed about purchasing a pregnancy test. If he was an average man, the walk from the designated aisle with a basket full of every kind of test sold over the counter, he would have had his head down and had been blushing furiously.

But he was too stunned, too scared, too sick to give much notice to how people were looking at him.

Pink box, blue box, green box; obscenely expensive followed by cheaply generic and they all went into the bag. He counted as they were tossed, one by one by one until the bag was near bursting and he felt the need to either scream or cry.

Somewhere, deep underneath the other emotion, under all of the _real_ fear, there was a laugh that was waiting to break out, waiting for the moment, maybe waiting for the day that she would tell him that she was pregnant with his baby. Maybe... well maybe tonight was the night. Perhaps, '_Oh god_…'

Maybe he would find out he was going to be a father. Maybe she would be the mother of his child, maybe she would be his wife, maybe, maybe, maybe... he couldn't imagine loving anything more than he did her and the sheer thought of that nearly sent him swerving into the opposite lane of traffic on the way home.

A son? A daughter? A tiny baby, a life that he could hold in his hands? Insanity, they'd only been seeing each other for five months, they'd been careful, so careful. They'd been _so _cautious that _that_ made his head spin too, the prospect of that one in a million chance, beating the odds, something going so wrong and turning out to be _so right_…

And what was he supposed to be thinking? What was _she_ supposed to be thinking? God, what _was_ she thinking? Was she crying... if she was crying when it red two lines or a blue dot or _whatever_... if she didn't want it and she was...

Grissom clicked on the radio, found a song that would appeal only to Greg, and blared it quite loud, drowning out his thoughts. That was the ride back to his townhouse.

As he climbed the steps, he wondered where they were going to live and if they were going to get married and where would the nursery be and-damned if it wasn't a little early and a little off guard but the most fantastic thing that, in reality, he could have ever dreamt. Not prepared, not nearly ready for anything relating to offspring or the upbringing thereof, Grissom found himself with a tiny spring in his step as he pushed open the door to his home.

He found her on the couch, robe hanging open, revealing the glorious expanse of her naked skin; breast, stomach, hip, all there. He wondered how she would fill out if it was positive; would her skin glow? What sort of food would she ask him to go out and get in the middle of the night? "I uh, I got... here." He held up the full shopping bag to her and she, with a sad, scared smile took it and with her other arm, pulled him close, pressing her naked body to his fully clothed one. "I'm sorry."

"Sara. Stop." He wasn't looking at her as he tucked her head into his neck. "If this happens, it happens. And just... I love you. And-"

"I'm gonna just go take uh, _these_," and with a sniffle and a slightly less-sad smile, she padded off to the bathroom.

It was two, three, four minutes and nearly thirty-three seconds before she emerged from the bathroom, still clothed in his old terrycloth. "They're... you know, processing."

"Yeah." She stood in front of him, palms open at her sides, bottom lip quivering just a little. "C'mere."

And she did, swaggered over next to him and plopped down on the sofa. Instantly, he draped an arm over her shoulder and they sat. And waited. And they waited some more. And when they were done with all of that, they waited a bit more.

It was hours.

It was five minutes.

Sara got to get up off of the couch and Grissom grabbed her hand and they went into the bathroom together. She was shaking; he wanted to be shaking too, it was only fair, but wouldn't allow himself to be. "What happens if I am?" she whispered, not daring to look down at any of the little cups she'd placed across the room.

Grissom blinked and squeezed her hand just a bit tighter. "Well, we figure it... out." He blinked again and pulled her up against him. "If you are then, that would be... amazing. And if you aren't, that's fine too."

Sara blinked, wanted to smile but didn't. The moment was too delicate.

So, together, they leaned forward and looked at the cups. Then they realized that there was no universal answer on those things for 'pregnant' and 'not pregnant' and they scrambled for the little instructional booklets and categorized each test.

"Not."

Sara glanced from side to side and then, "not."

"Not, not, nnnnn, wait, nope, not."

"Not and not."

"Well," Grissom said, hands smacking down at his sides. "That's seven uh, not... pregnant. What's that last one?"

She was holding it in her hand, an incredibly sorrowful smile on her face. "No, this one's a no too." Quirking her lips to the side she shrugged and tossed the small stick into the wastebasket. "Thank, whew, thank god for that!" Trying to sound upbeat, she put on a brave smile and looked up at him. "What?"

"Did... you want... Sara, did you want to, I mean _do_ you want to have a child?"

Shrugging again, _smiling_ again, she pulled the robe tighter around her and walked out into the bedroom. In the dim light, she shed the terrycloth and climbed into bed. Grissom watched her, clinging to the doorjamb, one arm holding onto either side. She looked at his frame silhouetted by the yellow light and imagined him holding a child in his arms; it nearly sent her into a fit of tears.

Could it be that beautiful? Would their child, a child created by them be so intensely beautiful that it would crack her heart? She didn't want to think such thoughts so she burrowed further into her pillow.

She didn't want a baby; she didn't _not_ want one either... it was just-

He climbed down into bed beside her. He'd shed his shirt as he'd walked over and when he scooped her into him her naked back was pressed against the warm skin of his chest. "Did you..."

"I don't know, Gil. I've never thought about it; it's never been a consideration." Slowly, she turned around in his arms to face him. "But then when I saw how insanely scared you were-"

"I'm that transparent?" A soft smile from him, a low chuckle from her.

"Yeah, and I just... know... you." She smiled and trailed a palm over his cheek. "But I thought that maybe since we were both so clueless about it all, so fucking scared that it could be... I don't know, fantastic maybe. Maybe it would have been, could be, okay. Ya know?"

"Think we could have...?"

"Maybe." She nodded, but not too vehemently.

"And maybe, you know, some day when-"

"Maybe."

And that was enough, that one word was enough to satisfy the longing that had suddenly torn open deep within him. She fell asleep in his arms and while his palm didn't rest upon her stomach where a child could have grown, it fell on her hip, and that was close enough.


End file.
